South Korea advances digital ID, electronic certificate adoption for domestic air travel and more

Starting March 20, South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport is allowing citizens to use digital identity to board domestic flights, as the government is trying to speed up digital identification and electronic certificate adoption across the country, Pulse reports.

The initiative is one of South Korea’s electronic identification pilot projects, ongoing for the past year and scheduled to be finalized in June.

The government decided to alter current legislation after discovering nearly 10,000 citizens per year are not allowed to board domestic flights due to lack of physical identification. As a result, passengers can now download a digital identity from a government app, and mobile driver’s licenses will soon be issued which will also allow plane boarding.

By the end of 2020, South Korea aims to provide digital certificates so financial, insurance and credit card companies can improve identity verification procedures for their customers.

South Korean top three mobile carriers are using PASS apps to extend the digital verification service and make it easy for users to use phone numbers to log in. KT, SK Telecom and LG Uplus will introduce a mobile driver’s license service that drivers can use for authentication when stopped by police.

By introducing blockchain-based mobile authentication and moving away from physical IDs, the government wants to prevent data leaks and secure the privacy of critical information. Samsung Electronics has just been approved to release a mobile driver’s license authentication service based on its PASS app.

Following the coronavirus outbreak and its impact on the biometrics market, digital identity checks could rise 20 percent, according to Goode Intelligence research.

The DID Alliance Korea, meanwhile, is seeking to establish a leadership role for the country in decentralized digital identity.

Article Topics

airport biometrics  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  driver's license  |  e-ID  |  identity verification  |  mDL authentication  |  South Korea